Daisytown man held for trial in Greene slaying

By Tara Kinsell
Staff writer
tkinsell@observer-reporter.com

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WAYNESBURG – A Daisytown man charged with fatally shooting Cordele Edward Patterson, 38, Aug. 14 in a cabin on Strawn Hill Road near Spraggs, was held for court Monday on homicide charges following a preliminary hearing before Greene County Magisterial District Judge Lou Dayich.

Jason William Roe, 32, of 65 Main St., is accused of killing Patterson and also is charged with shooting his wife, Lana Kay Roe, 40, who was treated at Ruby Memorial Hospital, Morgantown, W.Va., for a head wound, and released. She was subsequently arrested by police Aug. 24 and charged as an accomplice in the homicide. Police allege Lana Roe lured Patterson out of the cabin. She is being held in the Greene County jail without bond.

Lead investigator on the case, state police Trooper Jeremy Barni said he and two other criminal investigators responded to a call of a man with a gun at the cabin on Strawn Hill Road. A trooper looked inside the cabin but did not see anyone, according to Barni. After obtaining a search warrant for the cabin, police found the body of Patterson, on the floor behind a futon couch, Barni said.

Greene County Coroner Gregory Rohanna was called to the scene and pronounced Patterson dead at 7:45 p.m.

Police sent out an alert for a suspect, believed to be Roe, when he was not located inside the cabin or in a search of the surrounding area. West Virginia State Police, acting on a tip, apprehended Roe and held him in custody for questioning.

Barni and Trooper John Tobin went to West Virginia to question Roe.

“We advised him (Roe) he was a suspect in the shooting of a black male and his wife, Lana Roe. “He said he shot her (Lana) by accident.”

Barni said Roe told police he and Lana Roe had purchased a Mossburg shotgun earlier that day in Dry Tavern. “He (Roe) told us he arrived with Lana Roe in their white Jeep Cherokee. They were going to the cabin for target practice. When they pulled up to the cabin, Lana got out of the vehicle and started to approach the cabin,” Barni recalled from Roe’s statement. “He got out and approached on the lower side of the cabin, not with his wife. He walked to the top of the driveway and watched Lana going up the path toward the cabin.”

Barni said Jason Roe told him he saw Patterson coming out of the cabin and shot at him from the top of the driveway before running down the path and past his wife.

“He said he told her, ‘s..., I shot you,’ and continued to chase Cordele Patterson into the cabin where he fired one round from a shotgun,” Barni said. “He said he struck Cordele in the shoulder and he spun around and fell behind the futon couch. He said he then leaned over the futon and fired another round.

Roe’s attorney, Public Defender Harry Cancelmi, argued the Commonwealth failed to prove a case of criminal homicide against his client. Cancelmi said his client was shooting at someone who was leaving the cabin and approaching his wife, and that he pursued that individual and shot him.

Cancelmi said his client told state police that he saw another male looking out of the cabin window and heard gunshots, other than the ones fired by him.

Assistant District Attorney Linda Chambers said in his statementy given to state police, Roe admitted he saw Cordele Patterson coming out of the cabin, chased him back inside the cabin and he shot him. “He fell and he leaned over the futon and shot him again,” Chambers said. “That is consistent with how the body was found.”